If, like most people, the way you grate is by standing the grater upright and scraping the cheese along the blades in a downward motion over a bowl - then this genius method will change everything.

It turns out that lying the grater on its side and scraping the hunk of cheese horizontally is actually a much smarter way of doing it.

All of the cheese collects inside the grater for you to then sprinkle as desired, so it's a much tidier process with less random strands falling off and making a big old mess, writes the Mirror .

It also gives you more control over the cheese and makes grazing your fingers less likely. Ideal.

Twitter tip

A Twitter user spotted the clever hack in a video by Tastemade UK for a mac and cheese recipe and wrote: "OK, I was today years old when I found out THIS is how a cheese grater is used !? I feel a fool".

The social media user is not the only one whose world was shook by the revelation.

The post received over 60,000 likes and 20,000 comments from people whose minds have been blown.

One wrote: "Weird how we’ve all been doing it vertically loooool. But now I think about it, it makes sense to do it like the video".

A second Twitter user agreed: "Literally cheese grating will never be the same again".

Another said they are "mind blown" and someone else commented that "it all makes sense now".

Some people dispute the smart trick, saying grating is much easier when you have gravity on your side while others expressed concern about the grater damaging the worktops.